In the world of social media Google Plus is currently the youngest and least understood (albeit, fast rising in popularity) kid on the block. Over its relatively short life it has earned its fair share of both lovers and haters, generating an interesting debate on what it will become when it grows up, and whether it is worth investing in it.

When Google Plus was finally opened to businesses with the launch of its business pages there was a rush from companies all over the world to get a G+ page, but as our CEO Shashank Nigam warned in an article about the potential pitfalls for airlines using Google Plus, few of these companies seemed to have a clear idea of what to do with this new platform.

Let’s get some hard data

To get some clarity and hard data SimpliFlying did what it does best: walk the talk! We got ourselves a brand page on Google Plus and sent one of our team-members on a data-finding mission. While signs of progress on this particular social network is admittedly slow, after a week of relentless searching, we have come up with the first ever snapshot of the airline industry on Google Plus.

The main finding were:

• There are now 70 airlines with brand pages on G+.
• The vast majority of the pages are in English – about 78.5%. But on average, pages in Spanish are “liked” more often.
• The airline with the highest number of “likes” (known as “+1″s) was Mexican low cost carrier Volaris with almost 3000, double that of the second most popular page.
• The most common type of content on G+ pages is brand-related.

If you are an airline executive eager to know more, please do contact us and we’ll offer you a customized consulting or training solution to suit your needs.

Download a larger version of this infographic here.

What are your thoughts about how airlines should use Google Plus? Where do you see Google Plus headed? Tell us in the comments below or tweet us @simpliflying. Or, better still, join us on Google Plus.

• Airlines rush to get brand pages on Google+, but why? 7 questions to ask before you join a new social media platform
• [Infographic] Airlines on Twitter – April 2011 data reveals the need to focus on Customer Service
• Spain air traffic control strike: social media comes to the rescue, once again
• The essence of SimpliFlying, in an infographic. Introducing the coolest About Us page in the industry!
• Eezeer and SimpliFlying launch airline monthly twitter report – Delta leads Twitter use, and customer service is in!

Listen to the exclusive podcast below.

(c) 2012 SimpliFlying Podcasts

Note: The HTML5 player above should work with most modern browsers including those in mobile devices such as the iPad and iPhone. However, if you’re having trouble playing the file, please use the flash player at the bottom of this post. Please also note that the podcast above has only a snippet of the interview with Azran. To delve deeper into the mind of an industry stalwart and gain some exciting secrets to the success of AirAsia and its future plans, click the Buy button above and get our premium podcast at an introductory price of only $19. You can get the free, significantly abridged, SimpliFlying Podcasts on iTunes as well!

When AirAsia X began its operations in 2007, you could practically hear the skeptics sharpening their knives as they waited – and waited – for the long-haul budget carrier to fold.

No doubt those knives were whipped out once again when the airline recently announced that it would be terminating its services to London, Paris, New Delhi and Mumbai – flights to Europe and New Delhi will cease in March while operations to Mumbai ended in January.  Despite all the I-told-you-so’s, chief executive Azran Osman-Rani remains unflustered. In fact, he maintains that the long-haul, low-cast business model is one that can work – if done right.

Of Scale and Profitability

While Europe’s weak economy, high fuel prices and taxes, as well as the visa restrictions imposed by the Indian and Malaysian governments ultimately prompted the airline to halt services to those destinations, Osman-Rani says that markets such as Australia and China are proof that AirAsia X’s model is one that can, with the right scalability and economization, turn a profit.

“The model can definitely work but the ingredients to build that success require scale. What we have proven is that in markets [where we] have built sufficient scale, they have been very profitable. In fact, [our] profit margins are higher than even some of the disclosed profit margins of the leading full-service airlines in Asia.”

Indeed, despite the disruptions caused by the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan last year, the airline’s performance remained steady, netting it an on-site performance rating of 88 percent, which according to Osman-Rani “is much higher than some of the leading full-service airlines in the world.”

“Our engineering reliability rates [are] just about higher than everyone else…and if you go to the Skytrax website and look at the customer satisfaction scores for AirAsia X, we’re the highest among any Asian LCC and comparable to some of the top so-called 5-star airlines in Asia,” he continues. “We’ve developed a product that is very popular. It’s operation-sound and we can make it work and deliver profitability when we have scale and market.”

The Art of Strategizing

If there’s anything that the airline’s European and Indian sojourns have taught it, it’s that one has to prioritize. “If we want to compete, we have to let go of markets that are weak,” says Osman-Rani, adding that the airline will not be entering any new markets for the next two years but will instead focus on building up its brand and customer engagement platforms in Australia as well as Japan, Korea and China either by adding new cities to its network or increasing flight frequencies within its existing markets. “We’ve deliberately chosen the markets where we have a [strong] market leadership position and scale, by which we mean having multiple destinations in the market and strong frequencies that will connect well.”

However for many observers, it will be interesting to see if AirAsia X can maintain that position, especially when Singapore Airlines’s new low-frills carrier Scoot takes to the skies in June. The latter’s announcement that it would be operating direct Singapore-Sydney flights certainly played a significant role in putting pressure on the Malaysian government, which had been safeguarding Malaysian Airlines’ (MAS) interests up till then, to relax its restrictions on the Sydney route so that AirAsia X could be the first Asian LLC to operate to and from the Australian city starting April 1.

But what does he make of the competition? “The best way [of viewing the situation] is to look at what happened in 2004-2005,” says Osman-Rani philosophically. “Air Asia was a much smaller airline then and the entry of Jetstar and Tiger Airways into Southeast Asia made us wonder what’s going to happen to AirAsia with more competition and choice.” Fast forward seven years and it’s clear that those fears were largely unfounded.

That said, what’s going to determine which airline dominates the market isn’t a matter of who has the strongest network leadership. “The strength of the brand’s reach to customers is going to be the defining factor and it’s ours to lose if we can’t maintain that leadership position.”

In addition, there’s also the question of how fierce a rival budget airlines such as Scoot and Jetstar will turn out to be in the long run, given that much of the focus of AirAsia X’s growth will be on the north and south of Southeast Asia, which puts it in competition with larger full-service carriers such as Etihad Airways.

Entertaining Global Ambitions

Apart from strengthening the airline’s network and brand platform, Osman-Rani has grander ambitions as well and these include ideas for what he considers to be a truly global airline network hub. “The only model today is the global alliances – Skyteam, One World et cetera – and it isn’t a very strong consumer one because no one is going to say they’re going to fly SkyTeam. Everything’s still associated with the individual airline brand,” he explains. “In our model, what we’ve seen is the opportunity to create a global model anchored on one single brand – the Air Asia brand – and one single platform – AirAsia.com.”

Apart from AirAsia’s landmark tie-up with MAS, which will see both airlines capitalizing on each other’s resources in areas such as catering, ground handling and maintenance, Osman-Rani also points to AirAsia X’s collaboration with Japan’s ANA as an example, he points to how an airline can build on the same common brand platform rather than just having a loose alliance and code-sharing. “In this respect, one of the unique things that AirAsia is pioneering is how to roll this out globally. LCC is pretty much regional whereas the difference with AirAsia is AirAsia X. It is the trunk that can provide the link between the regions. For example, if AirAsia Japan establishes a very strong short-haul network, it provides AirAsia X the opportunity to come in to provide long-haul routes from Japan.”

Keeping His Eye on the Bigger Picture

For AirAsia X, 2012 is going to be a crucial one in terms of strengthening the foundations for its network, and that according to Osman-Rani means completing the task of reassigning the 30,000 passengers affected by the European and Indian flight cancellations, adding frequencies to “a couple of other existing routes” and making sure that the Sydney service goes off without a hitch.

More importantly, he is also hopeful that if everything goes according to plan, the airline won’t have to wait too long to file for an IPO. “I think if we succeed in [what we’ve set out to do] and hopefully with global equities picking up, we’d love to carry on with our plan for an IPO hopefully later in the year.”

When that happens, you can be sure the critics will be eating their words yet again.

In case you weren’t able to listen to the HTML5 version above, or if you wanted to listen to the podcast after you read the article, here it is for your listening pleasure in Flash.

(c) 2012 SimpliFlying Podcasts

Note: This is the free version of the podcast and contains the latest industry updates followed by a small snippet of the interview with Azran. If you want to listen to the full interview with Azran and gain some exciting insights as well as secrets to the success of AirAsia get our premium podcast at an introductory price of only $19. Just click the button below and you’ll be listening to it in minutes! The premium podcast also entitles you to a free copy of the complete podcast transcript. Just email us at podcasts@simpliflying.com to get it.

• AirAsia X: a brand with a huge potential, but remember, “you’re only buying the flying”
• SimpliFlying launches fortnightly Marketing Strategy podcasts for airline and airport marketers
• Pillars of Aviation – sneak peek into the future of aviation, from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
• How AirAsia is rocking it in India, and how airlines in India can leverage their entry
• Estonian Air crowdsourcing ideas to engage travelers as Tero Taskila takes over as new CEO

A short brand-recognition exercise

Let’s do a little exercise: name 3 brands of Cola.

Now let me guess: The first one that you thought of was: Coca Cola? And maybe the color red? The second one was: Pepsi, perhaps? And the third one?  Maybe you struggled a bit with this one, but probably it was the top selling “white label” brand from your local supermarket

Let’s do one more:

Think of good times (or more specifically, the recent holiday season) and name a brand of soft drinks.

I guess that you probably thought of something similar to the image below:

One last test:

Can you think of the holiday season and an airline/airport in the same breath?

Having troubles? Well it’s understandable since no airline brand has managed to “own” this idea yet, at least not in the minds of the general public. However some have managed to execute some “wow” campaigns aimed at associating their brands with positive emotions such as the ones associated with the holidays and Christmas seasons. As a result, they have ended up delighting customers, driving brand engagement and building loyalty.

In the spirit of the holiday season just gone by, with this Top 10, we have shown how some airlines and airports have spread smiles and goodwill amongst their customers.

• Top 10 Route Launches: How Airlines and Airports engage customers in new destinations through social media
• Toronto Pearson Airport sings you a Christmas carol if someone tweets you’re flying out – and they sang one for me
• Five airlines (and an airport) that surprised passengers this Christmas with Wow campaigns
• Oman Air’s re-branding effort – worth it?
• Vueling Business Class drives awareness creatively: The cloud that fell from the sky

Marco Serusi, Valencia, Spain

Marco Serusi  joined SimpliFlying in November 2011 as Community Engagement Executive, based in Valencia (Spain). He specializes in creating content related to airline marketing strategies and in maintaining our thought leadership in this area through upcoming initiatives like eBooks and podcasts. In the short time he’s been with us, he’s already launched SimpliFlying on Google+ and re-launched our Facebook fan page.

Before joining SimpliFlying, Marco worked for Aeronova, a Spanish charter airline, where he started as an intern and, within a year, became the youngest director of the company, taking up his former position of Marketing and Development Director at age 23. Marco has a passion for travelling that is well represented by his curriculum. After leaving Italy aged 18, he graduated in Air Transport in the UK, and then moved to Spain where he earned his MBA and specialized in Marketing. He is fluent in three languages (Italian, English and Spanish) and he’s studying two more (French and Polish).

You can connect with him on Twitter, LinkedIn or Google Plus.

Elizabeth Cecconi, Rochester, New York

Elizabeth Cecconi joined SimpliFlying in mid-Jan 2012 as the Community Engagement Executive at SimpliFlying, with a special focus on airports. She will be leading business development for airports globally for SimpliFlying, including providing strategy consulting for our clients, delivering MasterClasses and building thought leadership in the airport marketing field.

Elizabeth has her over 7.5 years of aviation marketing and air service development experience, having recently led all marketing and air service development initiatives at the South Bend Airport (SBN) in Indiana, and before that serving as the Marketing Manager and a key part of the three-member core marketing team at The Akron-Canton Airport (CAK) – one of the pioneers in using social media at airports. Elizabeth has a Bachelors in Science in Aviation Business Administration from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

Elizabeth was the co-founder and former president of the Michiana Chapter of the Social Media Club, a member of the Aviation Association of Indiana Outreach Committee and a charter member of the American Association of Airport Executives Next Generation Leaders Council. In her free time she can usually be found Skiing, traveling or boating.

You can connect with her on Twitter, LinkedIn or Google+ as well.

With Elizabeth leading execution on the airports side of things, Robert Cook, who led our charge in airports over the last year or so will be moving into a new role as one of the Board of Advisors at SimpliFlying, still advising us and sharing his immense expertise in the airport business.

A Twitter-only hiring process

The amazing thing is that both Marco and Elizabeth were hired purely through Twitter! We had sent out a couple of tweets saying that we’re hiring. The word spread across our 8,500+ followers and even made it to LinkedIn and Facebook. We had received over 20 applications in less than a week, which is when the shortlisting process began.

We shared the detailed role descriptions with the candidates and asked  each candidate  of them to submit a “creative” cover letter as to why they qualify. We received Youtube videos, Prezi presentations and even full-fledged websites from across the world (very, very impressive!). Those who were shortlisted were then given a task to perform, something they’d do in their role, like marketing an infographic. The top five performers were then interviewed and we finalized the positions not to long ago! It was a lot of fun for all of us.

To get a glimpse of what it is like working for a cubicle-less startup, do read Shubhodeep’s story, who’s been with SimpliFlying for over 18 months now.

Meanwhile, we’re all very excited about the expanding family and look forward to enriching your lives with airline and airport marketing goodness over the upcoming months and years!

• Announcing the judges for SimpliFlying Awards for Excellence in Social Media
• Airlines rush to get brand pages on Google+, but why? 7 questions to ask before you join a new social media platform
• SimpliFlying wins the 2011 Gold Magellan Award for being the Best Online Travel Blog
• What makes COPA Airlines one of the most profitable airline brands in the world? Interviews with two senior execs
• SimpliFlying now helping airports take-off: announcing SimpliFlying Airports

These are how the final results stacked up. Painfully close between Pooja and Diego, we must admit.



Congratulations Pooja!

What’s noteworthy is that the last week saw a record number of votes pouring in to the site in support of the various contestants and the final number stacks up to almost 3000 votes.That’s really, really huge. Thank you everyone for voting. Do watch out for next month’s nominees in the first week of February. Meanwhile, there’s good news for the two stalwarts who were pipped to the post: they’ll have one more chance in the coming months to win the crown and get a chance at a wildcard entry to this year’s Social Media Awards.

Watch out in the coming weeks for an extensive profile of Pooja complete with stories from her Social Media journey, her crowning moments at SpiceJet and what we can expect this year from the innovative, low-cost carrier from India! Congratulations once again, Pooja!

• A revamped SimpliFlying Heroes initiative – Vote for the Jan 2012 Hero now!
• For successfully leading SpiceJet’s launch of the Bombardier Q400 via social media, Pooja Dua is the SimpliFlying Hero for January 2012
• The Best Airlines, Airports and Hotels in social media – finalists for SimpliFlying Awards for Excellence in Social Media
• The Best Airlines in Social Media: the Top 7 nominees for the SimpliFlying Awards for Social Media Excellence 2011
• The Best Airlines Driving Customer Service & Crisis Management Through Social Media: Top 5 SimpliFlying Awards nominees

Even though he is no more, for marketers and air transport professionals alike Rico will live forever as part of our memories, presentations and as a source of inspiration for future strategies. What follows is a resume of his brief but well-lived life that, hopefully, will help us remember his best moments and better understand the marketing strategy for which he was created, due to which he thrived, lived and, sadly, was done away with.

Rico’s character was originally launched in October 2010 to promote Air New Zealand’s premium economy space seats. Even though what sort of animal he was and where he came from always remained a bit of a mystery, his fluffy persona was apparently designed as an effort to differentiate the advertising campaign by not using a human being. As Rob Fyfe CEO of Air New Zealand explained in his interview with SimpliFlying “if you put a human into the ads, you stereotype people’s image of what sort of people you’re trying to engage with.”

Rico’s first video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

He quickly became an internet sensation and started interviewing celebrities like Lindsay Lohan, David Hasselhoff and even recorded a rap video with hip-hop signer Snoop Dogg.

Rico with Snoop Dogg

Click here to view the embedded video.

However he also stirred up a lot of controversies, and was often criticized for his sexual innuendo, south American accent and, according to some, for not having anything to do with New Zealand and being off-brand. The strongest controversies, at least amongst the general public, were clearly related to his manners, as one of his critics put it:

“Air New Zealand has kindly created a verbal rapist and let him loose upon the world. I can’t imagine anything worse than having to sit next to a pervert like Rico on a flight – even if it were only Auckland to Hamilton – and whenever I think about Air New Zealand now, I get a vaguely uneasy feeling”

Rico and “the intimate art of touch”

Click here to view the embedded video.

In response to his critics Rico often said that, while it was clearly not from New Zealand, he loved the country and its airline, more than any other thing in the world.  Unfortunately for Rico and despite his huge popularity on the internet, it seems that his explanations were never convincing enough, and amidst controversy over his effectiveness Air New Zealand decided to let him go.

On the 1st of December 2011 the news of Rico’s “demise” began to spread over the internet. According to the information released by the airline, the “crime” took place while Rico was hosting a party in his Los Angeles mansion where several celebrities had been invited.

With one last touch of class Air New Zealand used a smart strategy to ensure that even Rico’s passing away would generate favourable buzz for the airline. The airline teamed up with Hasbro to create a Cluedo-themed internet game where users were asked to find out which one of the celebrities who attended the party had killed Rico.

The hunt for Rico’s killer spread virally through Twitter and Facebook, reaching thousands of people, until finally the murderer confessed the crime during a Youtube interrogation where Rico’s puppeteer played the part of a policeman and the murderer, Richard Simmons, played himself.

The killer’s confession

Click here to view the embedded video.

We, at SimpliFlying, bid  goodbye to Rico and hope Air New Zealand copes with their loss (and the world’s) by doing what they do best: producing many more great campaigns!

• Viral videos on Youtube as airline marketing strategy – lessons from Air New Zealand
• For giving us funny safety videos and bringing us Rico, Megan Matthews from Air New Zealand is the SimpliFlying Hero for March 2011
• How Air New Zealand is using social media to create waves globally, online and offline [Video]
• Exclusive: Rob Fyfe, Air New Zealand CEO talks about Rico – the airline’s brand mascot with an edgy personality
• Now, Pegasus Airlines creates an irresistible safety video, featuring cute Turkish kids

10. Social seating: Have you read about the Malaysian Airline initiative that led the airline to create a much talked about Facebook booking engine that allowed people to sit with their friends on the airline’s flights?

9. Airports in social media: In the ninth place we have a Top 10 case-pack, an initiative helmed by our Senior Innovation Officer Shubhodeep Pal, on how airports have driven engagement trough social media.

8. Blockbuster social initiative: Next, in 8^th place we find one, if not the, most successful social media campaigns of 2011, the AA Advantage “mystery miles” campaign that hit the headlines in February by achieving an 84 fold growth of its Facebook fans in 54 hours.

7. Airline Twitter initiatives: In the seventh place we find another Top 10, this time focusing on the use airlines made of Twitter, one of the fastest growing social networks of the year.

6. Social media ROI: The second half of our roundup us opened by keynote presentation made by our CEO Shashank Nigam at the Social Media Travel Summit earlier this year. The keynote focuses on a much talked about and little understood topic, the ROI of social media.

5. In fifth place is one of our most popular infographics, focusing on the resources that airlines dedicate to social media.

4. Airline Facebook initiatives: Our Top 10 case-packs have been one of the most viewed resources on our website and in the fourth place of this roundup we find another one illustrating the best examples of Facebook contests run by airlines.

3. 6X Model of Airline Branding: In third place we present a long standing favorite of our readers, the Airline Branding Whitepaper. This much praised paper was written by our CEO Shashank Nigam back in 2008. Yes, light years away in social media time, and was also selected and re-published by Brandchannel.com in the summer of the same year. Three years later it is still extremely relevant and, as this roundup shows, one of the most visited pages of our website.

2. Future of loyalty programs is social: In the second place comes one of our best infographic to date, highlighting the social future of loyalty programs and the new tendencies of the connected frequent flyers.

1. A380s and sales problems: In the first position, we have an article that was the most read in 2011, even though it was actually written in August 2009. We are talking, of course, of our famous piece on the Singapore Airlines’ A380 Suites and the sales problems that followed their introduction.

That said, if you have read this far you clearly have an interest in us. Similarly, we too are interested in our readers. We’d love you to use the comment box below to tell us what you would like to see (or not see) on SimpliFlying in 2012.

Thanks for reading SimpliFlying! Have a great New Year and here’s wishing you a fantastic 2012!

• A revamped SimpliFlying Heroes initiative – Vote for the Jan 2012 Hero now!
• [Infographic] How travel marketers calculate ROI on social media and why the future is mobile
• Vote for the SimpliFlying Hero of February 2011 – Finnair vs Delta Air Lines vs Malaysia Airlines
• Best Airports in Social Media: Top 5 Airports nominated for the SimpliFlying Awards for Social Media Excellence 2011
• A Brand New SimpliFlying – from airline branding pioneers to leading customer engagement at airports and airlines

“But honestly, do you even have a job?”

“Wow! That sounds interesting. But I still didn’t get what you do.” [Cue embarrassment at one end. Exasperation at the other.]

“When do you work? How do you work? It’s possible to work only on a computer? From anywhere?”

“Are you looking for a job? There’s an opening at…”

Believe it or not, none of these sentences is made up. Over a year of working with SimpliFlying, I’ve become accustomed to being bombarded with variants of such inanities more often than not. Happily, most of the times such queries are easily shrugged at or laughed off. But there comes a time when you want to reflect on the past year, on where you stand, where you’ve reached from where you started and of course, dispel any doubts that might linger in the minds of those (such as some over-inquisitive relatives) who’re eager to know more about you and your work. The brink of a new year is the perfect time for such soul-cleansing.

The Machinist

First of all, yes I do have a job. Shashank (the CEO of SimpliFlying), who I directly report to, would have you believe I have a rather important one at that, considering I do carry around the designation of “Senior Innovation Officer”. Tear away the pompous tag and you’ll find me rather close to the heart of SimpliFlying’s operations.

Our company, as you know, is involved in the business of helping airlines and airports engage their customers profitably by empowering them to build a stronger social brand. We achieve this primarily via strategy consulting engagements, MasterClasses and speaking “gigs”. However, much of these premium engagements leverage the free resources we’ve always strived to provide regularly: Top 10 case-packs, infographics, blog-posts advancing thought-leadership on issues such as airline loyalty are just some of the projects I’ve led here.

In essence, apart from helping brand SimpliFlying itself, I’ve also been heavily involved with product development. A free iPhone app was just a taster of things to come: do keep an eye out for the New Year where we have loads of surprises in store for you! I’ve been responsible for ensuring that the SimpliFlying keeps cruising smoothly on autopilot: be it helping organise our Annual Social Media Awards or a bit of web development behind the scenes. With Shashank usually ensconced comfortably in seat 2D, 30,000 feet in the air, tying together the strings of direct client work, someone has to ensure our online engines – website, YouTube, Twitter and SlideShare channels – don’t stop working, right?

A Cubicle-less startup job and its benefits

Second, yes again, I have a really cool job. And I can work when I want. I can indeed work from home and it’s absolutely possible to manage with just a computer and a fast internet connection and Skype. When I work is a source of consternation to my parents when I’m at home and a mystery to others because I don’t usually work during proper office hours. But my non-existent termination letter is enough proof that I do get work done!

In a nutshell, it’s been an incredible experience having control over so many aspects of one’s work life: when I get up, what hours I work, where I work from are all (almost always) dictated by my wishes. A bit of unsolicited advice for those who do take up such jobs, though: try to keep an element of structure and discipline in your life else you could very soon end up feeling too exhausted to work or play. Oh, and by the way, checking your emails constantly is a huge productivity killer.

So what have I learnt? Where do I stand? I’d say I stand on rather firm ground. There are three things that stand out about my SimpliFlying journey.

1. I’ve learnt a surprising amount not just about the industry we’re in (aviation) but also about how a business is run. Having always harbored aspirations of starting up on my own one day, this has been the closest I could have got to learning first-hand about a startup’s trials, pains and exhilarations.
2. Being involved with a multitude of projects, that too as varied as the colors in a rainbow, has helped me harness my eclectic interests from web development to product development (essentially being involved with anything creative) to writing state-of-the-industry pieces. And it hasn’t stopped at just the involvement part. Over time, as Shashank would testify, I’ve become much better at two of the most important things he stressed when I started: the importance of attention to detail and sticking to deadlines. My aim for the next year is to achieve perfection in these!
3. Most recently, I’ve started understanding how to better deal with people and get work done: not just from the employees in the company with whom I have to work (or some who might report to me) but partner companies that we work with. I’m elated to have learnt such essential practical lessons in the first year. The good news is that the learning curve is still increasing.

While writing has always been a passion, writing on this blog, at the cutting edge of technology and aviation, has been a rewarding experience in itself. The obvious benefit has been the realization that I have the ability to analyse situations/issues and offer “valuable” insights of my own. There’s also the added benefit of knowing that my work is being read in the top echelons of many airlines. And occasionally, even greater rewards have reared their heads in the form of pieces published in revered industry outlets such as Tnooz and Loyalty360.

What more could I ask for? I love my job, I love the freedom it offers me, I’ve gained years of “work experience” in a single year. What’s more, I even like working with my boss a lot. Life is bliss!

Quite obviously, I’m not looking for a job!

• Toronto Pearson Airport sings you a Christmas carol if someone tweets you’re flying out – and they sang one for me
• Eezeer and SimpliFlying launch airline monthly twitter report – Delta leads Twitter use, and customer service is in!
• Airlines on Second Life – 5 ways to dramatically increase brand value
• [Slides] Social Media Strategy for Lufthansa – how a legacy airline built a strong customer engagement model
• Five Imperatives For Your Airline’s Social Media Policy

At the close of the year, it’s worth pausing to consider how quickly the social landscape has evolved over the past year or so. Airlines have not only embraced Twitter but have also realised that there’s great value in using it to drive specific goals such as revenue, engagement and loyalty. Many innovative initiatives on Twitter have been captured in our Top 10 case-packs as well. It’s worth noting that as of November 2011 there were 198 airlines on Twitter with 90 actively tweeting. This, more than anything else, is a sign of changing times and even greater change to come.

A number of facts are immediately clear from this report:

1. Even though most airlines have jumped on to the Twitter bandwagon, the majority of the tweets are produced by a minority of airlines. 30 airlines provide more than 83% of tweets sent out by airlines.
2. Delta Air Lines is still the runaway champion, having been consistently been a Listening and Talking champion (in terms of tweets received and sent). Air Asia and Southwest make a belated, but expected entry to the list. However, American Airlines makes a surprise appearance on the Talking Champions list.
3. Airlines are definitely using Twitter more intensively with each passing day. Over the past 6 months, the number of outgoing tweets increased by around 38%.
4. As the weather begins to turn unpredictable, it’s that time of the year again when people feel hassled while flying. This was quite evident as “baggage handling” was a trending topic as the number of tweets related to it  increased by about 28% in the last month.
5. Over 1.2 million tweets have been exchanged between airlines and their customers on Twitter in the past six months. That’s a heck of a lot!

It’ll certainly be interesting to come back to this report at the end of the next year and see how things have progressed!

For more insights, check out the infographic below and let us know what you thought about it. Is there something ?that resonates with you? Or maybe it doesn’t? Comment or tweet us @simpliflying and let us know. You can view more airline infographics here.

(Click here to download a larger image)

Note: The airlines on Twitter report is produced by eezeerdatalab.

• Airlines on Twitter Monthly Report for July 2011 reveals that more airlines have Twitter accounts than loyalty programs
• Airlines on Twitter in June 2011: Delta Airlines is the breakaway “listening and talking champion”
• Airlines on Twitter Monthly Report for August 2011: Cebu Pacific joins the big league and scores high!
• Eezeer and SimpliFlying launch airline monthly twitter report – Delta leads Twitter use, and customer service is in!
• [Infographic] Airlines on Twitter – April 2011 data reveals the need to focus on Customer Service

• Happy New Year from SimpliFlying!
• Happy Crew = Happy Passengers = Great Brand!
• It’s our first birthday, and we want you to join us in Athens, Greece at the IATA Commercial Strategy Symposium
• Singapore Girl – you’re a cheap way to fly…or are you? Making the low cost Singapore Airlines brand work
• A Year with SimpliFlying, or How I learnt to love my job and get a life